family bowling day

We decided that we needed to have some fun with the kids before the chaos of life gets kicked up a notch with Jake starting school next week. We thought bowling would be a fun activity to do with the kids and entertaining for us to watch. *sigh* Let me tell you a few things I learned about bowling with toddlers:

1. Bowling with young children is fun for exactly 7 1/2 frames, then all interest seems to dissipate into thin air.
2. It is as close as you can come to torturing a kid to make them wait while 3 other people have their turn. The lesson of teaching patience lasts for about 3 frames then you risk an all out tantrum.
3. Rolling a ball down the lane at 1.3 mph will cause more problems than you would think.
4. My husband is capable of being a very sore loser when challenged by a 1 year old. (it was a real worry for him, honestly! you will see...)

Despite all of these little quirks, we did have a lot of fun! Taylie got a kick out of it and Luke thought it was funny. He actually picked out the perfect moments to laugh, such as when Jacob landed a gutter ball...more than once.

again, rolling a ball @ 1.3 mph leaves LOTS of time for taking pictures!

Taylie was determined to pick up and carry the ball by herself. An 11 lb ball at that!

So, like I promised, proof that Jake is threatened by his kids. You can't see his score, but I believe that he is sitting at a 16! Luke was seriously kicking all of our rear-ends by the beginning of the 4th frame and he was the first one of us to get....

A STRIKE!!!! I had to take a picture for his baby book or something, he did it all on his own!
The really sad thing is that we were really trying. We were only helping them get the ball down the right lane but they did all the work (with bumper assistance, of course). It was pretty funny that we were both getting creamed by our kids.

After the first few framed we realized that we could very well be there ALL DAY LONG if we didn't get something to speed it along. We found these little frame things that gives the ball a little bit more momentum because they can push it from up higher. Luke LOVED this!!!

From that point it went a bit smoother because we got the ball traveling up to about 5 mph. :)

In the end, Jake won, but only by 4 points.

This is a little movie of how the afternoon went. Someone bowled, Luke would clap and Taylie would say "Yay!"

So much fun!